Use Your Illusion Tour

Use Your Illusion Tour
Tour by Guns N' Roses
	File:Use Your Illusion.jpg
Legs	8
No. of shows	192

The Use Your Illusion Tour was a concert tour by the rock band Guns N' Roses which ran from May 24, 1991 to July 17, 1993. It was not only the band's longest tour, but one of the longest concert tours in rock history, consisting of 192 shows in 27 countries. It was also a source of much infamy for the band, due to riots, late starts, cancellations and outspoken rantings by lead singer Axl Rose.

History

The Use Your Illusion Tour was a promotional tour for the albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, although due to the scale of the tour, the term "promotional tour" is perhaps a trivialization. The tour started on May 24, 1991, shortly after Use Your Illusion I was recorded, but a few months before Use Your Illusion II. The tour marked a high point in the popularity of Guns N' Roses, with a total of over 7 million fans attending, and accompanied by high worldwide album sales.

Live recordings from the tour would later be issued as a two video/DVD set, Use Your Illusion I and II, featuring footage from a 1992 concert in Tokyo, Japan and would also provide content for the 2-disc set Live Era: '87-'93. The tour also provided a large volume of footage for music videos, including the popular "You Could Be Mine" and "Estranged". Also, at one time, footage of much of the tour was to be released as a documentary, titled The Perfect Crime. The footage consisted of Guns N' Roses' time on the road, and it is thought to have had concert footage, and information about the riots and other major events of the tour. Nothing has been said as to why it was never released. It was never spoken about after the tour, almost as if forgotten. Nothing seems to point to any release of this in the future.

The conduct of the band, and particularly Axl Rose, during the Use Your Illusion Tour generated negative press, notably from the magazines Spin, Kerrang!, Circus, and Hit Parader. Axl's response to this bad press is documented in the song "Get in the Ring".

The shows were all varied, as a set list was never chosen by the band. They did, however, usually open with "Welcome to the Jungle", "It's So Easy" or "Nightrain" and closed with "Paradise City". The shows were noted to be exciting to watch and each show featured many guitar solos from Slash and a solo from former drummer Matt Sorum.

The Use Your Illusion Tour was massive not just in the number and size of performances, but also in its technical aspects and the size of the crew. A total of 80 working personnel traveled with the band during the tour. The trade magazine Performance named the tour crew "Crew of the Year" for 1991.

Touring Band

Main band members

Axl Rose – vocals, piano (1991-1993)
Slash – guitar, acoustic guitar (1991-1993)
Izzy Stradlin – guitar, backing vocals (1991-1991)
Gilby Clarke - guitar, backing vocals (1991-1993)
Duff McKagan – bass, backing vocals (1991-1993)
Matt Sorum – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1991-1993)
Dizzy Reed – piano, organ, backing vocals (1991-1993)

Additional musicians

Teddy Andreadis – backing vocals, harmonica, percussion (1992-1993)
Roberta Freeman – backing vocals (1992-1993)
Tracey Amos – backing vocals (1992-1993)
Cece Worrall – horns (1992-1993)
Anne King – horns (1992-1993)
Lisa Maxwell – horns (1992-1993)

Schedule

Notable events

In Philadelphia during 1991, Axl Rose had erupted, after a fan had gotten into a fight with Guns N' Roses' photographer Robert John (photographer) when the fan kicked the camera out of his hands. Axl cursed out the fan, and challenged him to a fight. After the fan was ejected from the concert, the show continued.

On Tuesday, July 2, 1991, at a show at the Riverport Amphitheatre in St. Louis, Missouri, Axl spotted a spectator bootlegging the concert with a video camera, and jumped into the audience after him. After returning to the stage, Axl replied: "Well, thanks to the lame ass security, I'm going home" then slammed the mic on the stage. Axl then stormed off the stage; some people thought when he slammed the mic, because of the noise, that he shot someone. Slash told them, "He just threw the microphone on the ground. We're outta here." The band followed. The band was looking to come back out and finish the show, but as the police and security were trying to calm down the audience, a riot broke out. The footage was captured by Robert John (photographer), who was documenting the entire tour. Sixty fans were injured. The band lost most of their equipment and Axl was charged with inciting a riot. He was acquitted due to lack of evidence.

In November, 1991, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin quit the band.

Guitarist Gilby Clarke made his debut in December 5, in Worcester. This was also the first show after the release of Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II.

On April 13 and 14, 1992, two concerts had to be canceled when a warrant was issued for Axl's arrest due to the St. Louis show.

On April 20, 1992, the band performed at the The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, an effort for AIDS Awareness in London. Late in the show, certain members of the band (notably Axl Rose and Slash) joined music legends like Elton John and the remaining members of Queen for a few classic songs. The show was broadcast live around the world via satellite, gathering the largest audience for a music concert in history.

On August 8, 1992, at a show in Montreal, Quebec, Metallica frontman/guitarist James Hetfield's left arm was badly burned due to misunderstanding about some new pyrotechnics added to Metallica's set. Metallica was forced to end their set early. However, Rose refused to begin before Guns N' Roses' scheduled time leaving fans to wait hours before Guns N' Roses finally took the stage. A few songs into the very late Guns N' Roses' set, Axl stormed off stage due to vocal issues, sparking a huge riot that spilled into the streets.

On November 25, 1992, the band performed in Caracas, Venezuela, in front of a crowd of 45,000. Just two days later, the Venezuela Air Force launched a failed military coup, making it impossible for the band to leave the country with all of their equipment. ^{[citation needed]}

On November 30, 1992, the band performed for the first time in Bogotá, Colombia. When they started to play "November Rain", a soft rain fell over the city and stopped right after they finished the song. (Axl later stated this was a special moment for him because November Rain was #1 in Colombia for 60 weeks.) Following this, Axl stated that the band were at risk of electrocution and must stop to dry the stage. The band moved backstage and returned to finish with "Don't Cry" and "Paradise City".

On December 5 and 6 the performed for the first time in Argentina surrounded by rumors, threats, and controversy. Rose unxepectedly appeared the night before to their first show giving an exclusive interview to Marcelo Tinelli on his show wearing the Argentinean football team shirt. The night after Axl Rose opened the show performing "Welcome to the Jungle" wearing that shirt again. ^{[citation needed]}

On July 17, 1993 the band performed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, their last show with their original formation (Axl Rose, Slash, Duff Mackagan, Matt Sorum, Gilby Clarke and Dizzy Reed). The show was named "Skin and Bones" and was a variation of the Use Your Illusion Tour including an unplugged performance in a living room set in River Plate Stadium in front of 80,000 people. A highlight of that part was the Domino's Pizza delivery boy that ended up playing drums with Matt Sorum.

Trivia

During the whole tour, shows were opened with a variety of songs: Welcome to the Jungle, It's So Easy, Nightrain, Right Next Door To Hell and Perfect Crime. This fact alone proves that they had alot of variety in setlists.
Garden Of Eden was performed at least twice during the tour, one recording also exists (Frank Erwin Center, Austin, Texas 02/23/1993). Other rarely performed songs were Locomotive, Breakdown, Coma, Bad Apples and Back Off Bitch. During the Skin N' Bones -tour 1993, the band also played The Garden, Nice Boys, Reckless Life, Dead Horse, Used to Love Her and You Ain't The First. Some of them in every show and some just couple of times.
The longest show of the tour was held in Inglewood, CA 08/03/1991. It lasted almost 4 hours.
During the first show of the European leg (Helsinki, Finland 08/13/1991) Axl walked off the stage after screaming "D'YOU KNOW WHERE THE FUCK YOU ARE!", leaving the band alone playing Welcome to the Jungle instrumentally and jamming together. The band played 14 Years + drum and guitar solos before Axl came back. They broke into Jungle again, now with vocals. It is said by reporters, that Axl had already ordered a limousine to take him back to his hotel in Helsinki.
In Germany 05/28/1992, before the drum solo Axl stated "Now we're gonna do something we really enjoy for ourselves.. and.. for those who don't like it; go get yourself a fuckin' coke! And for the press.. who doesn't like it; go fuck yourselves!". The crowd got good laughs out of it.
In 07/21/1992 Axl threw up during You Could Be Mine. After solos and November Rain they played it again though. Recording of the show exists.
The band added an acoustic part (including a sofa and a coffee table on stage + a pizza delivery boy in some gigs) to every show on the Skin N' Bones -tour. It included You Ain't The First, You're Crazy, Used to Love Her, Patience and Knockin' on Heaven's Door. Later they added a Rolling Stones cover Dead Flowers to the set. Also November Rain was played partly acoustically with just Axl on piano and Slash on acoustic guitar (percussion was supplied from Sorum with gongs and kettle drums), the outro would remain as the original.
A show was planned to be played in Moscow, Russia (05/21/1993), but it never happened.
Double Talkin' Jive was always in the setlist, but the band made many changes in it during the tour. In 1993 they jammed along with Whole Lotta Rosie, Communication Breakdown, Oh Well and Train Kept A Rollin' during the intro. One of the longest versions (with Train Kept A Rollin') was played in Cologne 06/19/1993, after the first chorus Axl yelled to a fan: "HEY YOU.. YOU.. YOU.. YOU.... FUCK YOU!" and continued "Ok we gonna start over, just.. first verse over okey?". Duff and Matt kept on jamming until Duff counted "one.. two.. ONETWOTHREEFOUR!" and in unison the whole band broke into the familiar heavy beat, like they had practiced it. Recording of the show exists.

External links